Micron M600 (128GB, 256GB & 1TB) SSD Review
by Kristian Vättö on September 29, 2014 8:00 AM ESTFinal Words
My thoughts about the M600 are mixed. On the one hand I am happy to see that Micron is showing its commitment to the client market by investing on features like Dynamic Write Acceleration because to be honest, Micron has not really introduced anything new to its client SSDs since the M500. Innovation in the client segment is difficult because the market is so cost driven and even though a pseudo-SLC cache is nothing new, Micron's way of implementing it is.
On the other hand, I am a bit disappointed by the performance of the M600 and especially Dynamic Write Acceleration. In theory Dynamic Write Acceleration sounds great because it should provide the maximum acceleration capacity under every circumstance and thus maximize performance, but the truth is that the speed improvements over the MX100 are minimal. Add to that the fact that the M600 is actually outperformed by the 840 EVO, which utilizes TLC NAND with smaller SLC caches. It is not like the M600 is a slow or bad drive, not at all; it is just that I expected a bit more given the combination of MLC NAND and dynamic SLC cache.
The positive side of Dynamic Write Acceleration is the increased endurance. While 72TB was without a doubt enough for average client workloads, it is never a bad thing to have more. Especially OEMs tend to appreciate higher endurance because it is associated with higher reliability, and it also opens a wider market for the M600 as it can be used in workstation setups without having to worry about drives wearing out. Of course, I would pick a faster drive like 850 Pro for workstation use, but for OEMs the cost tends to be more important.
| NewEgg Price Comparison (9/28/2014) | ||||
| 120/128GB | 240/256GB | 480/512GB | 960GB/1TB | |
| Micron M600 | $80 | $140 | $260 | $450 |
| Crucial MX100 | $75 | $112 | $213 | - |
| Crucial M550 | $90 | $150 | $272 | $480 |
| SanDisk Ultra II | $80 | $110 | $200 | $433 |
| SanDisk Extreme Pro | - | $190 | $370 | $590 |
| Samsung SSD 850 Pro | $120 | $200 | $380 | $700 |
| Samsung SSD 840 EVO | $82 | $140 | $236 | $500 |
| OCZ ARC 100 | $75 | $120 | $240 | - |
| Plextor M6S | $75 | $135 | $280 | - |
| Intel SSD 530 | $84 | $140 | $250 | - |
Since the M600 is an OEM-only product, it will not be available through the usual retail channels. Thus the pricing will depend highly on the quantity ordered, so the prices in the above table are just approximate prices for orders of one that Micron provided us. The M600 enjoys a price premium over the MX100, but I suspect that in high volumes the M600 pricing should drop close to the MX100 levels, perhaps even lower.
All in all, I would have liked to see Micron going after Samsung's 850 Pro and SanDisk's Extreme Pro with the M600, but I do see the logic behind sticking to the high volume mainstream market. In terms of performance, features, and price, the M600 is a solid product and I am certain that PC OEMs will see the appeal in MLC NAND and high endurance over competitors' TLC offerings, especially in the more professional-oriented PC segments.
It will nevertheless be interesting to see how the separation of retail and OEM product teams plays out for Micron. I am eager to see whether Micron can optimize Dynamic Write Acceleration for heavier workloads and finally provide competition in the high-end SSD market as well. For now, this is a good first step, but it might take a revision or two before Dynamic Write Acceleration can reach its full potential.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
56 Comments
View All Comments
nirwander - Monday, September 29, 2014 - link
First 840 EVO, then MX100...hbarnwheeler - Monday, September 29, 2014 - link
What explains the data loss? Are you suggesting that DRAM was not being flushed during system suspension?milli - Monday, September 29, 2014 - link
Damn, I'm having four systems which are having suspend/resume issues. Especially when the system goes into S5 suspend. All four have MX100 drives. Two identical systems with other brand SSD have not such issues.I'm not having corruption but sometimes when the computer is resumed from S5, it can't find the drive.
Bought those drives based on Anand's recommendation. Thx
Thank you for the link. It will be helpful. Can you confirm that modifying hipm dipm helps?
metayoshi - Monday, September 29, 2014 - link
I wouldn't be so sure as to blame Micron for losing data or getting errors when it comes to Windows suspend and resume. I have had WD, Seagate, and the acquired Fujitsu, Hitachi, and Maxtor HDDs, and Intel, Crucial, and Corsair SSDs, and all of them have had problems when it came to Windows suspend and resume. I never ever use Windows' own Sleep and Hibernate states anymore because of this problem. These power states from Windows are not even supposed to be considered an unexpected power loss by most of these storage industry manufacturers because it is required by the specs for Windows to gracefully flush any cached data and power down the drive before yanking the power to it. As far as I know, all of these drives can handle a graceful power down just fine.Unexpected power loss should happen if and only if the user either physically holds down the power of their PC to forcefully shut down the system, or the power cable is physically disconnected from the drive during operation. If an error is happening during suspend and resume, there's usually something wrong that the OS is doing, or something wrong that the OEM system is doing because if there is no graceful power cycle to the storage during suspend and resume, that's the OS's or the OEM's or the BIOS's fault.
BedfordTim - Monday, September 29, 2014 - link
I always disable sleep for that very reason. With my Thinkpad and Vista it never woke, and while things have got better it still happened with Windows 7 on every machine I have tried it on.Lerianis - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
O'really? On every single computer I have had, sleep worked without issues. I've had Gateway's, HP's, Acer's, Toshiba's, etc. None of them had problems with sleeping properly in Windows Vista - 8.1.I'm thinking that you are exaggerating or just out and out falsifying what actually was going on.
leexgx - Saturday, November 1, 2014 - link
i agree i always sleep my computer and laptops only OS that had a problem with doing it was Vista with Nvidia + creative card (witch was not comptelay VIsta fault) on windows 7 never had an issue with sleepi guessing i not had the issue with the 2 512GB MX100 i have (X58 i7-920 systems) as the motherboard i got due not support any of the adv power management features (well i did have to update the firmware in the other system as it was failing after 5 minutes but that system has always been odd, but the firmware update did seem to resolve it or something els i did)
leexgx - Saturday, November 1, 2014 - link
probably bad luck with Drivers and sleep (Drivers are what norm break the sleep, last time i had BSOD issues was related to Sleep and Creative sound drivers)not that i need to sleep this system as it boots up in under 20 seconds (but Chrome is compleatly CPU bound when it reopens 40 tabs)
Lerianis - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
Is this problem/issue present with Windows 8? Or did they fix this issue?shodanshok - Monday, September 29, 2014 - link
Hi Kristian,it seems that Dynamic Write Acceleration is disabled on 512GB and 1 TB disks. From techreport:
"Surprisingly, the 1TB and 512GB variants don't have Dynamic Write Acceleration. Those drives are already fast enough for the controller, according to Micron, and the math works out. The Marvell chip can address up to four chips on each of its eight memory channels, making 32-die configurations ideal for peak performance. At 16GB per die, the cut-off point is 512GB."
This is probably the reason behind the 512 GB units having only 50% more endurance that the 256 GB one: DWA on the smaller one can absorb many writes and flush them in sequential form on the MLC array, saving some flash wear (in average).
Regards.